This Land is Your Land

In many ways, each forest preserve across DuPage County reflects a different chapter in American history. Around the turn of the 20th century, Kline Creek Farm ushered in the industrial revolution — an era which made the owner of Mayslake Peabody Estate rich in the 1920s.

In the following decades, Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps built a shelter at York Woods, and the United States Army used McDowell Grove to house a top-secret operation during WWII.

And then, exactly 58 years ago on June 23, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. visited Blackwell Forest Preserve.

On that day, despite the summer heat, King gave a 15-minute speech dressed in a black suit, surrounded by trusted confidants at a simple foldable table topped with a tangle of microphone cords that spilled over onto the grass.

Back then, the land was owned by the Cenacle Sisters of North America and surrounded the now-demolished Warrenville Cenacle Retreat House. Two days before King’s visit, the Cenacle Sisters permitted Al Raby, a local activist, and a dozen other demonstrators to stage a tent-in protest on their grounds. Raby and his small band of protesters were opposing the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory’s construction, arguing that the state should instead prioritize nondiscriminatory fair housing.

King lent his support to the demonstrators, saying that they were fighting “a grave injustice the federal government could rectify.” King also encouraged community members to join a march the next day; the event drew approximately 350 people, but King did not attend.

When Forest Preserve District Commissioner Rick Gieser, whose district includes Blackwell, found out that King spoke in Warrenville, he was flabbergasted at the fact that “one of the most significant people of the 20th century spoke on what is now the county’s public property” and equally so at the realization that no one had seemed to notice.

“Though the Forest Preserve District may not have owned the land back then, things happened on that land that still have an effect today, which is why I was so shocked that so many people, even historians, weren’t aware MLK spoke here,” Gieser said. “We need to share those things that happened on this land, which is still important to us.”

Martin Luther King’s purpose for speaking on the retreat house's grounds, at first glance, may seem far afield — and even unrelated altogether — from the Forest Preserve District’s mission to acquire and hold lands for preservation of its natural resources and recreation of its citizens. But according to Gieser, MLK’s and the District’s missions are deeply intertwined.

“It’s absolutely a benefit to people of limited means to have this public, open space,” Gieser said. “In the preserves — in DuPage and elsewhere — they’re for everybody, regardless of income, gender, race, status. Everyone’s welcome in the forest, and I think that’s a wonderful thing.”

Image Credit: Pictorial Parade/Staff